This invention relates to game apparatus and, more particularly, to playing cards having a unique combination of alphabet and suit designations that permits the cards to be used in playing conventional card games as well as a variety of new and interesting word games and further having an improved shape that facilitates handling and viewing of the cards.
Conventional playing cards are typically divided into four suits designated, respectively, diamonds, hearts, spades and clubs. Each suit contains thirteen cards including an "ACE", nine number cards having values from "2" to "10" and three "picture" cards, typically designated "JACK or KNAVE, QUEEN and KING". A conventional deck thus includes a total of 52 cards. Over the years, numerous games of varying degrees of amusement and complexity have been devised to be played with such conventional playing cards.
From time to time over the years, playing cards have been proposed which include alphabet letter designations imprinted on their faces. Alphabet cards have been disclosed, for example, in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,012,574; 1,243,085; 1,332,249; 2,042,930; and 2,783,998. Cards of this type are typically utilized in word games in which the player's ability to spell words under various conditions and from various combinations of of the cards is tested. Word games of this type have been found to be not only entertaining but beneficial in an educational sense since they tend to improve the players' spelling ability and vocabulary.
A problem with alphabet playing cards that have been proposed heretofore has been their general lack of versatility. In many cases, the arrangement and distribution of alphabet letters on the cards have been specially selected for use in playing only one specific game. Thus, when players become bored with that game, the cards are no longer used. In other cases, the alphabet cards can be used in playing a variety of word games, but not for playing conventional games such as those typically played using conventional four-suit cards of the type described above. Thus, when players desire to play such conventional games rather than word games, the alphabet cards are set aside in favor of conventional four-suit cards.
Most playing cards available heretofore are also of a rectangular shape with the length, or height of the cards being greater than their width. The card value and suit are typically represented by an illustration located centrally on a face of the card and are also indicated in mutually inverted orientations near the upper left and bottom right end of that face. This allows each card to be viewed and its value and suit recognized from either end. However, when a player holds the cards in his hand, the cards are typically fanned by holding the lower ends of the cards together and angularly displacing the upper ends with respect to one another so that only the value and suit designations imprinted near the upper left end of each card are visible to the player. When the player lays such a fanned-out hand down on a table for display to others with whom he is playing, the value and suit designations are properly oriented and readily visible to him. Players seated around the table, however, must view the cards at an angle which may be 180.degree. displaced from the line of sight of the player who has laid the hand down. It is thus difficult for the other players to see and evaluate the hand on the table unless it is rotated in their direction. It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide improved playing cards.
Another object of the invention is to provide playing cards having alphabetic letter designations thereon that permit their use in playing a variety of new, interesting and educational word or alphabet games.
Another object of the invention is to provide playing cards having suit and alphabetic letter designations thereon that permit their use in playing a variety of new, interesting and educational word games as well as conventional card games.
Still another object of the invention is to provide playing cards having improved shape that permits the cards to be easily held in a player's hand and that provides improved visibility of each of the cards when the player's hand is laid down on a table.